Psychoanalysis is an intensive form of psychotherapy that is aimed at helping you gain the most in-depth understanding of your emotions, behavior, and relationship patterns. You will have the opportunity to develop extensive insight about aspects of yourself that are beyond your awareness. Often factors that you may not be aware of create certain symptoms such as anxiety, panic, depression and eating or sleeping disorders. They may also appear in the form of difficulties in work, problems in intimate relationships, low self-esteem, or troublesome behaviors. Psychoanalysis helps you to get to the core of your difficulties in order to resolve symptoms, to feel more confident and spontaneous in your relationships, and to enhance your sense of personal fulfillment and productivity.
Psychoanalysis goes beyond solving a specific problem and is designed to help you to resolve your deeper underlying issues. It entails meeting three to five times weekly with your analyst and talking as openly as you can about your thoughts and feelings. This frequency of sessions helps to promote optimal access between your conscious awareness and the unconscious, underlying sources of your difficulties. During the course of psychoanalysis, your therapist will help you to connect thoughts and feelings from your past with your present life on a deep emotional and not just an intellectual level. You will discover how complex unconscious factors affect current relationships and patterns of behavior, trace them back to their historical origins, and understand how they have changed and developed over time. Developing greater self-awareness is the key that enables you to effectively deal with the complex realities of your current life and to make appropriate changes.
Dr. Dori Dubin is a Therapist and Psychoanalyst offering Individual Therapy, Marriage Counseling and Psychoanalysis at her Oakland, California office. Conveniently located near the Rockridge BART station, Dr. Dubin sees clients from all over the East Bay Region including Oakland, Berkeley, Rockridge, Albany, Alameda & Contra Costa County.